Laws Authorizing Payment of Financial Rewards for Providing Information about Antiquities Trafficking
Abstract
This responds to your request for us to identify federal statutes that address antiquities trafficking and to address whether those statutes authorize federal agencies to pay financial rewards to individuals who provide information about such trafficking. In July 2017, a national retail chain agreed to forfeit to the federal government thousands of ancient Iraqi artifacts that had recently been imported in violation of federal law. That same month, state law enforcement officers obtained a warrant to seize an ancient vase from a New York art museum that reportedly had been illegally excavated in Italy in the 1970s. These cases illustrate the scope of antiquities trafficking affecting the United States today. To respond to your request, we reviewed the United States Code, law review articles, other scholarly articles, and prior GAO reports to identify statutes that specifically address antiquities trafficking. Because there is no definition of this term in the United States Code, we defined antiquities trafficking for purposes of this work as the illegal transport, transfer, and sale of historic, human-made objects, such as statues, jewelry, and artifacts. We then analyzed these laws to determine whether they authorize federal agencies to pay rewards to persons other than confidential informants who voluntarily provide information about violations. We also met with officials from the Departments of Homeland Security (DHS), Justice (DOJ), and State to obtain their understandings of these laws and of other applicable rewards provisions we identified through our review.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 09, 2017
- Accession Number
- AD1176722
Entities
People
- Susan D. Sawtelle
Organizations
- United States Government Accountability Office